How the 'Silicon Valley of India' is bridging the digital divide

By Naomi Canton, for CNN

Updated 1410 GMT (2210 HKT) December 6, 2012

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – India has a population of 1.21 billion, according to the last Indian Census. More than 800 million Indians live in rural areas and just under 400 million live in urban areas. However Internet penetration of the entire population is below 10 per cent, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI.)

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – There is a deep digital divide in India which splits across wealth, occupation, education and geographical lines.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – While 20% for urban Indians are connected to the Internet.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – Only three % of rural Indians are connected to the Internet, according to IAMAI.

India's Digital Divide – The paradox of modern India is that while the middle classes have enjoyed prosperity as a result of India's fast growing economy, the majority of the population have been left out.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – The Digital Inclusion Index, released by risk analysis firm, Maplecroft in 2011, ranked India as one of the worse performing countries for digital inclusion. The digital divide is exacerbating a divide which already exists between the have and the have nots.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – India has only 22 million Internet subscribers which is less than two % of the population. However there are 919 million cell phone subscribers, representing 76 % of the population, according to India's telecoms regulator.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – 59% of those in rural India who do not have access to the Internet blame no Internet connection, while 35% blame improper electricity supplies and 39% have no PC at home, according to IAMAI. There is often no telecoms network infrastructure in Indian villages. Only 0.4 per cent of rural Indians access the Internet from their mobile.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – 37% of non-users believe they have no need for the Internet and 42% are not aware of the Internet. Many people from rural areas do not speak English and there is limited content online in Indian vernacular languages, IAMAI has found. Pictured are city labourers who tend to be uneducated migrants from villages.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – The Digital Empowerment Foundation in Delhi has been using unused spectrum to supply remote tribal regions with wireless Internet and has been training tribal people to operate it. Pictured are tribals in Madhya Pradesh being trained in how to manage, maintain and monitor a small wireless network.

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Photos:India's Digital Divide

India's Digital Divide – The aim is to democratize the availability of Internet access in India and address the lack of online content, product and services originating from rural areas.

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Story highlights

The Indian city of Bangalore is home to some of the world's top global software companies

IT experts are trying to bridge the digital divide by providing free wireless internet in some areas using unused spectrum

Only 20 percent of urban Indians and three percent of rural Indians use the internet

Traditional craftspeople are also being trained to surf the net and use web tools for the first time in their lives

While some babies in India are snapped on smartphones the second they are born and their pictures shared on Facebook, others never get access to the internet in their lifetime.

Bangalore is known as India's Silicon Valley because the city is a hub of technology entrepreneurs and home to some of the world's top global software companies, but the paradox is that many of its residents have never surfed the Web.

Mr Kemperaj from Hennur in north Bangalore specializes in making lamp shades and pillow cases. He used to travel more than 70 km every day to get a sample of his work approved by his vendor. Now he sits in front of a computer, sends the photos by e-mail and surfs the Net to research new designs and discover new sales routes such as eBay.

He is one of hundreds of craftspeople who have benefited from ongoing workshops organized by the Internet Society (ISOC)'s Bangalore Chapter.

Using an Internet Society Community Grant of US $9,000, ISOC Bangalore is training everyone from tailors and glass cutters to cotton weavers and furniture makers to download pictures, e-mail, video conference, instant message, use Excel and Word, as well as promote their products on Facebook and Twitter.

Ankush Bagotra, chairman of ISOC Bangalore, says: "These artisans had seen computers and heard of the internet but most had never used it or wanted to use it as they did not realize it solved a lot of problems for them.

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"One thing is the cost of buying a computer or laptop; another is that broadband infrastructure is not as ubiquitous in India as the U.S. and it's costly for the common man.

"Paying a monthly data fee is also costly and they don't appreciate how it can benefit them."

He says having access to Web and Microsoft tools has empowered the craftspeople to sell their products to a wider custom base, compare their rates to the competition, get new ideas, increase their productivity and learn computerized accounting.

One group of artisans used to create pages of orders every day. Now they use Excel. Another is using Google Docs and instant messaging to communicate with their clients.

"Often there is no wired connection in villages as there is not a good return on investment to the Internet service provider," explains Raghavendra Sathyanarayana, a 31-year-old wireless communications engineer from Bangalore, currently living in Finland.

He registered a company, Cramnet (Cognitive Radio Assisted Mobile Network) Wireless Communications in October this year, which he hopes will empower Indians trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide. He plans to use unused spectrum to provide wireless internet free of charge to the digitally disenfranchised in India.

"The Industrial Scientific and Medical Band is an example of spectrum that can already be used for free in secondary mode," he explains.

He hopes it will enable people to pay bills online, farmers to check wholesale prices of their crops and mothers to know what vaccinations to give their children.

The Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in Delhi with the support of the Internet Society, has already been installing wireless networks in remote tribal regions using wasted spectrum.

Osama Manzar founded DEF in 2002 after resigning from his position as CEO of a software company three years earlier. The 45-year-old says he realized that "the entire country could leapfrog the developmental cycle if she were to forget about racing for the industrial revolution and aspire for an information revolution instead."

"There are two unlicensed bands in India which can be used by anybody for non-commercial use," he says.

Wireless mesh networks have so far been installed at Chanderi a town in Madhya Pradesh, in which more than 60 per cent of the population earn a living from handloom weaving, at Tura in the northeast state Meghalaya, where the Garo tribe lives and in Baran in Rajasthan where the Bheel tribe lives -- they use it to deliver video conferencing to educate tribal children.

"Power is a serious concern in remote areas, but we try to make sure that the supplying nodes are solar-enabled. Having said that even battery back-up is good enough as nobody in remote areas wants a 24/7 service," Manzar adds.

As for whether efforts should instead be made to provide clean water and electricity first, he says: "That too is a priority. But they have not been getting it for several centuries and if they do not join the information bandwagon now they will continue to suffer and be exploited. Being part of the digital media, they can at least share their grievances."

So the Wireless for Communities project is not just about giving the digitally ignorant access to information. Another aim is to help those who "never in the history of India got a chance, to be an equal participant in information creation," Manzar says.